


(Bring Me) Back To Life

by AweburnPhoenix



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Abandoned Building, Banter, F/F, F/M, Ghosts, Old Movies, Post-Episode: s05e04 Detour, UST to RST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:14:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27654638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AweburnPhoenix/pseuds/AweburnPhoenix
Summary: Mulder and Scully investigate a case dealing with ghosts and an abandoned asylum. It propels their relationship forward as they learn a bit more about each other.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 38
Kudos: 52
Collections: X-Files Case File Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scullys_laughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scullys_laughter/gifts).



> Dear Scullys_laughter; 
> 
> I had so much fun writing this. Hope you enjoy it and that it is close to what you were wishing for :)
> 
> Endless love to Jeri, Cassi, and Annie for helping me with this story. It would've been total nonsense without you. Any mistakes that remain are my own

_Cheboygan, Michigan  
_ _October 31st, 1997  
_ _10:00 p.m._

Fraternity parties were not Jess’s first choice of entertainment, but Mandy had asked her to join her at this particular Halloween gathering, and she couldn’t say no to her best friend. Jess didn’t care about popularity contests and the like—she had been an outsider for years during high school—so she didn’t mind not making many friends in college either. She had Mandy and Michael; and she was content enough with that. However, Mandy had always been a popular girl, and she felt that dropping by would increase their sociability. 

_Jess, you need to make more friends. I'm not going to be here forever to introduce you to people._ Her diatribe had gone on and on, and Mandy had stopped listening. 

So, that’s how she found herself sitting on the back doorsteps of a fraternity house, a beer in hand. The music was loud and she wasn’t enjoying the crowd, so she had escaped a while ago. Jess was waiting for Mandy to get bored so they could get back home for the weekend. Her mother was away until Sunday, and Jess was hoping for Michael to come by and spend the night at her place…That was the party she wanted to be part of.

“You should be inside talking to people,” Mandy’s voice interrupted Jess’s comfortable silence.

“Can’t we leave already? We’ve been here for more than two hours,” Jess whined. It felt like half a dozen, but she had just checked her watch a couple of minutes ago.

“ _I_ have been _in there_ for two hours. _You_ ’ve gone inside for like five minutes, tops,” Mandy snapped.

A loud sigh was her answer. Mandy was right, but Jess’s heart wasn’t in it. She was counting the minutes for Michael to come to fetch her. He shouldn’t be long now.

As if summoned by her words, a red Ford Ranger pulled over and he honked the horn. Jess’s eyes lit up and she got up. Mandy winced in response.

“You gotta be kidding me! I thought you had broken up with Michael!”

“No!” Jess replied quickly. “It was just a setback,” she added brushing her jeans. “We’re good again.”

“Jess, that guy’s no good for you. You should be dating college boys. There are dozens of good guys inside who would treat you much better—”

“I don’t want any college boy. Michael is fine. We’re fine,” she asserted walking away. “Are you coming or not? Ryan’s here too.”

Jess saw Mandy frown, but after noticing Michael’s passenger it only took her a couple of seconds to get up herself and walk her way. She could rant all that she wanted about Michael, but Jess knew that Ryan and his _oral skills_ were Mandy’s weakness. 

“I’m doing this just for you, so you get home safe and sound and don’t do anything reckless.”

“Uh-huh! Sure, Mandy. I’ll tell Ryan you’ve outgrown him and you don’t want him, by any means, in your bed tonight.”

Mandy’s blow to her arm was a little rougher than it should have been, but both girls laughed it off before entering the car.

“You two had fun in there?” Michael asked before turning to Jess and kissing her lips. “We found a perfect place to finish your Halloween themed party on our way home,” he wiggled his eyebrows as he revved the engine and sped away.

* * *

“No. There’s no way I’m going in,” Mandy said for the fourth time and settled down on her side of the back seat. 

They had taken a detour into a ghost town, Allenville, on their way north. There were about a dozen houses scattered around that seemed to not have been inhabited for years. When they were finally leaving, Ryan had noticed a bigger building and they had decided to go check it out.

“C’mon, girl! Don’t tell me you’re afraid of ghosts, now!” Jess tried once more to convince her. “You used to love visiting these places.”

“I don’t care about any ghosts. That building looks like it’s going to collapse any minute now, and I don’t want to be inside when that happens. It’s a no from me.”

“Whatever! Your loss. I’ll bring you a souvenir!” Jess shouted back, already running off.

The guys had left five minutes earlier, not waiting for Mandy to make up her mind. So, Jess had to catch up with them. They had left her one of the two flashlights they had brought with them and Jess was struggling to turn it on. She finally managed to activate the mechanism, although it didn’t seem to be too bright when she was at the front door of the ramshackle building. Some bronze-green letters announce she was about to enter the LA**NA*CE AS*LU*.

Mandy was exaggerating when she said that the building was on the verge of collapse. It was true that it must have seen better days, but there were just some broken windows, filthy walls, and unhinged doors. There were traces of lots of flora and fauna having made themselves at home inside, but nothing scary or worrisome.

“Mike!?” Jess called. “Ryan!? Where are you guys?” 

They had been five minutes ahead, so they couldn’t be too far gone. Jess started thinking they might be hiding somewhere to startle her. It wasn’t going to work; she was a hundred percent vigilant for them. 

Jess kept exploring the building, passing by one room after the other. The first floor looked like a normal, old hospital, with some large rooms to both sides of a large hallway, except the windows were barred outside. 

As she tiptoed her way in, pointing her flashlight at every sound, spiderwebs grazed her skin and made her jump. A couple of times the brush felt so solid that she thought Mike and Ryan had finally found her. But every time she turned around, there was nobody. She could swear she heard murmuring, but as much as she tried to decipher what the voices were saying, they were unintelligible. It must have been the wind playing tricks on her, a blast of a nocturnal breeze passing through a crack in a window.

 _It’s just your imagination_ , she kept telling herself.

At the end of the corridor, Jess found herself facing a decision: stairs up or down. She guessed that she would only find more rooms on the second floor, probably the patients’ small recovery rooms. Surely, the guys would have gone to the basement. That was where the most interesting items would have been. 

Would they find an electroshock chair? The equipment for conducting a lobotomy? She pushed her toe down to test the structural soundness of the steps before moving downward.

Every step creaked below her feet and Jess knew she couldn’t scare the boys while making so much noise. At the end of the spiral staircase, Jess entered a much darker corridor. Given that it was underground, it was also much more silent, and she couldn’t even hear the breeze that kept her company upstairs. She tried holding her breath for a moment so she could hear the boys walking around but there was no sign of life. 

Maybe they had gone upstairs instead? 

Jess decided that she didn't want to be alone after all. It wasn't that she was afraid, no, it wasn't that at all. It was something else entirely that she couldn't quite put her finger on as she turned to take the stairs. However, the distinctive, white flash blinking at the end of the corridor caught her attention. 

“Ha, gotcha,” she whispered to herself, amused she had found the boys without them noticing.

As quietly as she could, Jess tiptoed down the corridor. She refused to look anywhere but forward, opting to focus on the last door where she had seen the source of light. In her periphery, she could see that all the doors to her left and right were similar. Sturdier than the ones upstairs, they all remained closed. A small viewing window in the center top of each door would allow anyone to glimpse inside, but she didn’t steal a peek. She kept moving forward, her flashlight pointing down so she wouldn’t give away her position. 

Once she reached the last door, Jess turned off her beam and crouched in front of it, then rose slowly so she could peep inside. Complete darkness. Her heart was beating out of her chest. She just knew the guys were about to startle her; she could feel them around but didn’t know where they might be hidden. The hairs at the back of her neck bristled. She was equally scared and excited thinking that maybe she could startle them too and they would be even.

Thumbing over the switch on the flashlight, Jess barged in, shoulder first, turning on her light.

“Found ya!” she yelled, panting in excitement, in the empty room. 

Casting the stream of light around the room she tried finding the boys, but there was no one there. Jess swore she had seen some light coming from here but now it seemed impossible. This room didn’t even have an outside window, and pointing the light at the ceiling to discover the bulb above was shattered. Even if the building still had electricity, which she doubted, there was no way light would have come from here.

What had she seen?

Taking another look around she could only see a ripped mattress atop a crooked frame, a small table, and a chair. There was no way either Michael or Ryan were hidden here.

 _Pretty_ …

A sudden gust of wind brought a word with it, and every hair in Jess’s body frizzed up.

_Pretty girl…_

She heard it again and turned around, searching for the origin of the voice, but she was still alone.

Until she realized, somehow, she wasn’t. There was a presence in the room, she could hear someone breathing. Smelling her. Then whining. Suddenly, the window in the door fogged up and something grabbed her right wrist.

“Don’t let Lapinance hurt you, too,” A distinctly feminine whimper echoed in the room.

The initial freeze turned into a flight instinct, and Jess wrestled to get free of the hand that was grabbing her, losing the flashlight in the struggle. Running as fast as she could, she made her way out of the corridor and into the stairwell. The darkness played tricks on her eyes and her feet missed nearly every step, stumbling immediately. She groped for the railing, for anything, as her knees smacked against the surface of the floor.

“Mike! Ryan!” she yelled as loud as she could. “Help! Help me!”


	2. Chapter 2

> _December 19, 1918_
> 
> _Mother says I shouldn’t be leering at ladies as I do. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong, but she insists it is improper._
> 
> _Sister says that if I focused my sight on gentlemen, at least I would get their interest in me._
> 
> _They probably don’t agree but I still think I’m too young. Mother thinks I should be looking for suitors if I don’t want to end alone like Aunt Edna, but I just can’t get interested in searching for a husband. Most men they introduce me to are rude and grueling. I so much prefer to focus on my female friends, they are so more delicate and prettier._

_Hoover Building  
_ _November 14th  
_ _8:05 a.m._

Another Friday, another week ending. Facing a weekend without a case had never been easy for Mulder, but it was particularly difficult lately. He just wanted to spend more time with Scully. The only reason he could find for it was taking her away on a case, even though he knew it was selfish and it meant stealing her away from her own life. From her own life. 

Could he just show up at her place and “chill out” with her? Up until a month ago, he had a reason to do so. _I just wanted to check on how you were feeling,_ he used to say, and she would always invite him in. Luckily, she wasn’t ill anymore. It was a huge relief and every day he was thankful for that. However, he missed having a reason to visit her. 

“Morning, partner,” Scully’s voice entering the basement took Mulder away from his rambling. “What are we working on today?”

Mulder checked his clock and realized it was unusually early for Scully to show up. She was eager to work and he had nothing to offer.

He had been checking the dozens of folders on his desk for the last half hour and not one of them seemed interesting enough to waste her weekend on it. Maybe he would just let her off the hook and check the Engadine Case by himself. It was the only riveting one he had right now, and it was also the only case he was sure he didn’t want her involved with.

“I think it’s gonna be a paperwork morning, and then we can make an early start of a weekend,” he finally fabricated.

“We’re pretty up to date on reports, Mulder. You gotta have something worth investigating on that pile,” she retorted, walking towards him after leaving her coat on the rack by the door. 

It delighted him how eager she was to take new cases lately. Barely a month had passed since she had left her hospital bed, and he had managed to keep her safe and home despite the itch to get back to his work. They hadn’t had any real case yet—he wouldn’t count the one they had run across in Leon County—and she seemed as restless as he was. Mulder knew she was fine, perfectly healthy, and capable of facing their line of work again. However, he still didn’t want to put her in jeopardy. And most of the cases they usually worked on were pretty dangerous.

Scully insisted, sitting on the edge of his desk by his side, crossing her arms across her chest waiting for an answer. Mulder could smell her perfume, it was intoxicating; filling his nostrils with that Scully aroma that made him do whatever she asked him to. So, making sure he left the Engadine Case out, he handed her the pile.

“See for yourself. This is all I got, nothing worth starting on a Friday.”

Scully quickly went over the folders, tapping her fingers every now and then. Mulder noticed her about to comment on a couple of cases. However, as he had done some minutes before, she quickly dismissed each folder. 

When she was about to return the pile, she stared at the one he had hidden not-so-well under the table mat.

“What’s that one about?”

“Hmm?” He took the file from her hands and quickly placed it over the mat, trying to hide exactly what he didn’t want her to see. But she was faster and retrieved the last folder before he could bury it.

“Uhm, that one? That’s a silly case. I was about to archive it. Not even worth a look,” he retorted, trying to pick it from her hands. 

Scully noticed his reticence and got up, escaping away from him so she could take a look at the contents of the folder. She sat on her chair at the desk by the door and went through the folder. Mulder focused on her face and noticed her demeanor went from surprise to intrigued. He was not liking it.

“Mulder, this seems worth taking a look at,” she said after a while, still not raising her eyes from the papers. “Why did you hide it?” 

“I didn’t think you’d be interested in such a far-away-case, and, well…our last phantasmagoric case didn’t turn out so well. I didn’t want to go back to that atmosphere, you know…” 

He didn’t know how to express his worries about Scully facing apparitions. He wanted to investigate this but was too worried about her. What if she saw a ghost again and he didn’t? Would they take it as a sign that her cancer was coming back? Scully didn’t usually experience the paranormal; her absence seemed to be fated whenever the truth was revealed to him. And that one time that she saw but he didn’t, it almost tore them apart. He didn’t want to push them through that again. Not so soon, at least. 

“Mulder, I’m fine,” she soothed him. “I can handle it. Besides, ghosts don’t exist.” Her tone came across as pretty convinced but Mulder couldn’t help but notice her squirming a bit in her seat. She would always do that, try to look strong on the outside but having doubts on the inside that she wouldn’t share with him. It still bothered him, but he could only work towards showing her that she could trust him with everything.

“But, you see,” Mulder tried once again, “I think it was only kids having a classic Halloween night in an abandoned building, tripping over some furniture in the middle of the night and blaming their bruises on ghosts because they didn’t want to look silly.”

“A boy is missing. Also, this 1989 similar case with a boy who turned out dead some weeks after he disappeared. ” Scully pushed. “Jessica Williams has the same marks on her wrists as the other boy. There could be someone trying to kidnap teenagers. I do think it’s worth a look.”

“He might just have gone on a trip. It seems the only concerned party is the girl who reported him missing, a friend of his, and the girl who was supposedly beaten by a ghost. You can’t seriously be interested in such a case.”

Mulder pondered her for a minute. Scully seemed to be evaluating her thoughts. 

“I must admit there are some gaps in these stories. Jessica Williams claims she was beaten by a ghost on Halloween night. Mandy Smith assures it must have been her boyfriend, Michael Crowel. And that he must be responsible too for the disappearance of Ryan Mills a couple of days ago. The police reports say Michael cannot be tied to the disappearance, though. I don’t buy the ghost story, but the truth remains that a boy seems to be missing. This looks like foul play.”

Mulder wasn’t convinced about her interest, but he wasn’t going to fight her if she was so eager to leave town with him when it was exactly what he wanted. And, after all, she was right: a kid was missing. Maybe they could help.

* * *

After a three-hour connecting flight in which they went over the notes on the case, they landed in Michigan without trouble and rented a car to drive the rest of the way. Scully was slightly hungry, but they planned to make a stop to eat once they had reached their destination. So she decided to take a little nap to calm her stomach. As Mulder entered the Mackinac Bridge, the vastness of the Michigan and Huron Lakes to her left and right, she pondered on the real reason for having decided to take this case.

It was not the least interesting case she had been a part of, but it was not something she would actively have chosen to be doing on a Friday afternoon. However, it seemed like the best excuse not to be around her mother for another weekend. Scully loved her mother to no end, but she was getting tired of the endless attention. Ever since she had recovered from her cancer, her mother kept calling her every other day to see how she was doing. It didn’t matter how many “I’m fine”s she would say; “I’ll call you if anything comes up” would go in one ear and out the other. 

And it was not only that. Scully was so happy for Tara and Bill, but she had had enough pregnancy news. She was happy that the due date was approaching, at least her mother would not keep telling her about some pregnancy thing that Tara had told her about, and how excited she was about visiting them and seeing her baby belly.

Scully had known for a while that she couldn’t have children. Back when she had found out, she didn’t care much: she was fighting a deadly disease and her main focus was on just staying alive. Now that she had been completely healthy for about a month, she had started pondering it again. There was nothing she could do about it and she was somewhat okay with it. Scully had never really thought about having children. She was invested in her career and her independence. But was that everything she wanted for her future? 

Now that she knew that she couldn’t have it, it seemed like the single thing she wanted. Her freedom had always been important for her; she never really needed to be surrounded by people. Loneliness was not something she feared or dreaded. However, now she craved more human contact, and somehow Mulder seemed to be the reason for it.

During her illness, he had always been there for her. Checking on her, helping her around when she couldn’t find strength, calling her or answering her calls when pain and fear didn’t let her sleep. As she got well, he had released her little by little. And she missed it, missed him. She would never tell anybody, surely not him, but more often than not she daydreamed about another life. A white picket fence home with a big golden retriever running in front of a couple of kids trying to chase him while Mulder goofed around some way or another. 

Maybe it was because Spooky Mulder was unbelievably kind with kids. Maybe because he was the only male figure she had been attracted to in years (one-night stand aside). The whole thing was now off-limits and completely unattainable, but Scully’s mind went there more often than not. She hoped it would stop once the baby was born and her mother stopped being so tiresome.

Drifting off to sleep, she tried putting her worries aside and decided to focus on the case. This was exactly what she needed. Working hard always helped her when she had too much on her mind.


	3. Chapter 3

  
  


> _January 16, 1920_
> 
> _Mother says there is something wrong with me and that she’s going to take me to see a doctor if I don’t change my ways._
> 
> _I don’t know why she’s so upset, I just told her that Mr. Morrison is a tedious man and that I would rather marry his older sister. It was just an insignificant comment, but halfway true, nonetheless. Miss Morrison is one of the prettiest women I’ve ever seen, and she’s so nice to me._
> 
>   
>    
> 

Jessica Williams’ Residence  
 _Engadine, Michigan  
_ 2:30 p.m.

After about an hour, Mulder parked the rental car at the address of the girl who had alleged an attack. He switched off the engine and waited for Scully to wake up. He watched her sleep for a moment. Seeing her just breathe peacefully in the passenger seat made him sigh. He must have been driving her to the edge of exhaustion if she so desperately needed a nap like that. He contemplated waiting for a couple of minutes to let her finish her rest. A lock of hair was tickling her cheek so he moved silently to put it behind her ear, but he woke her up.

“Sorry. I must’ve dozed off somewhere along the way…”

“It’s okay,” he dismissed her worries. “Let’s see what Miss Williams has to say.” 

As they walked the paved path to the house, Mulder pondered on the possibilities. For once, he hoped this would turn into one of those cases in which the victim truthfully changed the story, once faced with a higher officer of the law. Usually, those cases made him hate his job, traveling miles only to get back home with his hands empty. But the scenery was beautiful around here, and the weather was pleasant for early winter. Maybe they could quickly close the case and he could be free and persuade her somehow to stay and to do something nice with their weekend.

Scully knocked and a girl around eighteen opened the door for them. Mulder noticed the fading marks around her wrists. She was the one they were looking for.

“Jessica Williams?” Scully must have seen the marks, too. “We are Agent Scully and Agent Mulder, from the FBI. We’d like to ask you a few questions…”

“Please, come in,” the young woman sighed deeply, opening the door for them. “I don’t know what else you want me to tell you, I’ve already told my story to the police a hundred times and they still don’t believe a word I said. I shouldn’t have listened to Mandy. I knew nobody would believe me.”

They sat in the living room and Mulder noticed the girl’s nervousness. She was biting her right hand’s nails and her right leg kept trembling. Her left arm wouldn’t let go of a long pendant she was wearing. She was either still scarred by the encounter, or anxious about being questioned again.

“Miss Williams, we’ve read your report. We were hoping you could tell us your story, so maybe we can help clear the case, or pick up on some detail the local police might have dismissed for some reason,” Scully started, trying to calm her down.

“We assure you, you don’t need to leave anything out. As weird as it might seem, we won’t doubt your words,” Mulder added.

In dealing with these kinds of cases, Mulder always made sure that the victims knew he was going to believe them. When people had encounters with the supernatural, they usually knew that telling their stories meant they were going to be taken for lunatics. It was his first mission to make sure that the victims trusted him.

Miss Williams took his word and wasn’t shy to describe her encounter with the apparition, as she called it. She hadn’t seen anything, only heard it and smelled it. Mulder was glad that Scully did her best not to scoff at the strangest details Jessica shared with them. When people commented on a “sulfur smell” or “chilly feeling”, she usually made sure to ask for a logical explanation. But not this time. She seemed a little lost in thought.

Or maybe it was the fact that the details Miss Williams described were not the textbook encounters they were used to. She spoke of smelling a vintage perfume, heavier and potent, sandalwood and cedar. And then, the female voice. 

When the girl showed the marks on her wrists where she’d suspected the apparition had held her, Scully came back to reality. As it had been almost two weeks, they were mostly some dark yellow bruises by now. 

“Do you have a copy of the medical report?” Scully asked. 

The girl got up with a sigh, finally letting her pendant loose. Mulder noted It was a beautiful silver and onyx flower-like jewel. There must be something special about it for her to cling so deeply to it. The jewel seemed old, so it must be some family relic. 

Miss Williams walked away dragging her feet, and Mulder knew she was feeling they were not believing her story.

“What do you think?” Mulder whispered when he heard the footsteps fading.

“The police report said the marks looked like ones from straps, and by what I’m seeing, I can only agree. Had it been a human, a ghost, grabbing her, they should be finger-like marks.”

“Maybe it was a ghost with strap-like fingers,” Mulder chuckled. “Who knows…”

“What I think is that the kids got kinky seeing the restraining beds in the asylum. After she got the marks, she came up with this story not to raise any flags with her friend. Her boyfriend might not know how hard to bind her, judging by the long-time healing. I mean, it’s not easy to get the right amount of grip if you’re inexperienced…”

Mulder’s jaw dropped an inch as Scully kept talking. He needed to stop her or the images her explanation was putting in his mind would embarrass himself.

“You seem to know a lot about that kind of kink, Agent Scully.” Calling her out always seemed to work, as she would never indulge his flirting.

“Look, I’m not… _indifferent_ …to that kind of thing, but I think an abandoned asylum could make it all go wrong,” she finished, lowering her voice as Mis Williams was coming back with the report.

They both took a look at the pictures and Mulder had to agree with Scully. The fresh marks hinted at a belt-like hold, the buckle was easily distinguishable at the top of the wrist.

“I know what it says there. I know what the police report says: strap marks. But I swear on my honor, the Bible, or whatever you want; someone grabbed me. I felt cold fingers. It was someone I didn’t see. It wasn’t Michael or Ryan. I wasn’t drunk, it wasn’t the wind playing tricks on me. I know what I heard and what I felt…”

“It’s okay Miss Williams,” Mulder interrupted her before she started crying. Paranormal or not, the girl had been through something traumatic. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.” 

Maybe it had been a ghost or maybe it hadn’t. Whatever the cause he was now determined to find out who had distressed this girl in such a manner. 

“Can we take these for further review?” Scully asked, holding the medical report. 

“Yeah, sure,” Miss Williams quickly answered, wiping a tear with the back of her hand. “I’m not going anywhere near that place ever again, I just don’t like being called a liar.”

Mulder and Scully said goodbye and promised to come back with news, hopefully having found the person who had tried to trap her. Once inside the car, Scully opened the medical report again. 

“These marks are the same as the other case, the kid in 1989 that turned out dead at the entrance of the asylum. The kidnapper tried with Jessica first, and after she escaped, he somehow got hold of Ryan days later. Maybe checking the first case we can get some leads.”

“I think that lead is as cold as the body. He was a rioter and nobody was surprised to find him dead. The case was left unsolved because nobody seemed to care about the poor boy. I don’t think we’re going to get any clues that way.”

Mulder loosened his tie and looked back to the house.

“What about Jessica’s friend? And her boyfriend? Maybe we could try and get them to talk.”

“The girl who was sitting in the car swore to have seen nothing, and only mentioned that she doesn’t like Michael because he’s a bit rough on her. That seems to be the reason the police are dismissing the whole case. Michael claims to have only heard her scream and seen her run outside. Also, he says he has no idea where Ryan might be.” Mulder drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “They might be covering for each other, but I’d like to take a look at the place first. We can grab something to eat and drive to the asylum, take a look inside before it gets dark, and maybe get some evidence the local police might have dismissed.”


	4. Chapter 4

> _ February 4, 1919 _
> 
> _ I’m married now, but I don’t like what Mr. Morrison does to me at night. Sister says it will all end when I get pregnant. Miss Morrison has told me not to be afraid and relax. She’s even taught me how. I like it way better when I lay with her. _

  
  


_ Lapinance Asylum  
_ _ Allenville, Michigan  
_ _ 5:12 p.m. _

The sun started to set when they were reaching their destination. They should have timed their trip better. Mulder offered to drive back to town but Scully decided to go anyway. It was not unlike themselves to visit dark places in the middle of the night with only the help of their flashlights. So, they continued. The darkness would only make it more difficult to find evidence, but maybe it being night time the perpetrator would be there trying to snatch another victim. It would even be better: they could catch him in the act, and close the case in a day. That meant going back home sooner than she expected, but apprehending criminals was never bad news. 

The night was clear, and the moon seemed to be full, so maybe they could get a little clarity after all. The gate was broken, and there was no obstacle to get in. Walking a dozen yards in the front garden, which had been left to rot and grow free, they reached the front door. Some of the letters at the entrance had fallen or been taken, but the report stated the place as being the Lapinance Asylum. A thick chain was holding the big twin doors together but doing a poor job, as it left space enough for a person to slide in. Maybe Mulder would have to crouch, but Scully just lowered her head and walked in without disheveling herself. One of the perks of being a small person. 

Scully immediately turned her flashlight on and checked that her gun was ready while Mulder sneaked inside.

“The final demise of large, state psychiatric hospitals happened around the sixties, but this one seems to have been abandoned for a while longer,” she just said when he stepped by her side.

The place seemed like it had been unused for more than forty years, by the looks of the plant growth inside. The walls, ceilings, and doors were badly chipped. Many windows were unframed, and lots of garbage piled up on every corner. The place was completely silent and they stood there for a couple of seconds, pointing their lights up and down. A bird flew out an open window and it almost gave Scully a heart attack.

“I may be using that window when we get out, I think I broke my back walking under that chain,” Mulder joked, rubbing his lumbar region. “Ladies first,” he encouraged her and Scully wondered if he was trying to be funny or a little scared. 

Mulder was a tough man, but since he believed in everything paranormal, dark places gave him the creeps more often than they did to her. When you knew that everything out there could be easily explained and nothing paranormal existed, it was easier not to panic. Rational thinking and scientific explanations made her fear go away. Thus, she buckled up and walked in. At least he was covering her back.

“There must be hundreds of abandoned asylums just like this one around the US. If all of them were full of ghosts and ghouls we’d be getting calls every other day,” she started reasoning with Mulder as she walked deeper into the building. Explaining her fear made her feel grounded. “You were right back at the office: this is surely going to be a case of a prank gone wrong. Did you never visit an abandoned building and scare your friends when you were young, Mulder?”

“No,” he just answered in the distance. Scully turned around and noticed he’d gone inside one of the rooms that divided the ground floor. 

She paused herself too and looked inside a room to her right. Nothing eerie or disturbing. Just some distressed furniture. The chairs weren’t even arranged in an orderly manner. It seemed like they had been abandoned on the spot in a hurry. Making sure nobody was there, she went back to the corridor and continued her speech. They reached the stairs and she decided to go up. The spiral to the basement seemed quite rusty, and she decided, if it was her call, they would walk down in daylight. No need to rip her pants or break a leg in the complete darkness. 

“Most buildings were abandoned for health-hazard reasons,” she continued as they arrived at the second floor, “such as the common use of asbestos which is now known to be hurtful. And with the retreat of mankind, nature has reclaimed every space, thus the empty bed frames, rotting floors… There’s nothing paranormal here.”

As they wandered down the hallway, Scully looked back at Mulder and he just nodded, seemingly not paying her much attention as he looked inside another room on the left side.

Upstairs the rooms were smaller and were all decorated quite similarly. Some had a couple of cots, but most of them had just one bed, a small table, and a chair. Or parts of what used to be those, to be precise. The whole thing was so decayed it was distressing. Mulder was uncharacteristically silent, and she felt the need to keep talking to stay calm.

“This is a classic example of why asylums are perfect scenarios for horror movies. They look disheartening.”

“But, Scully, you gotta admit it’s creepy. The fading sounds, twinkling lights…”

“It’s not creepy, it’s just in ruins. Whatever else you think you see or hear, is only a product of your imagination. The disembodied voices and doors forced shut are just gusts of wind. Flickering shadows can be attributable to the moonlight and clouds. Or just a flashlight,” she added raising hers, “reflecting in a broken piece of glass.”

A couple more steps and they reached a very different room. It looked like a study. A big sturdy desk presided over the chamber, and the sidewall was covered with a bookshelf.

“This must have been the Chief Physician’s Room,” Scully suggested walking to the desk, which was in an admirable condition in comparison with the rest of the building.

There was a dry quill lying on top of some yellow paper, and a rubber stamp showing a surname:  _ Lapinance _ .

“Maybe there’s something here for my problem,” Mulder joked, taking a look at the decaying library.

“What?”

Mulder grabbed one of the books and blowing some of the dust away he showed her the cover. She could read _Nymphomania_ _and_ _hypersexuality_. 

“Mulder, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to find much about male problems in there. Back then, scientists were only concerned with women being too sexually active. Besides,” she added after a bit, “you’re not sick, you’re just a normal active sexual male in his bloom.”

Scully had always found his interest in adult magazines and movies more amusing than disturbing. She probably shouldn’t have gone that far, but she found it easier to speak her mind lately. Maybe they were growing more comfortable around each other? It couldn’t be a bad thing, they were partners after all. 

“Well, not as active as I’d like…Still not raining sleeping bags.”

Scully smirked at his comment but decided to let it pass. She had been uncharacteristically daring during their last case. Maybe it had been the thrill of the moment, of it being their first case after her illness. She had thought about it when she had gotten back home, and she was quite relieved that Mulder had ignored—or not caught—her hints. It would have been trouble. They were good as they were, one flirting while the other ignored it.

“Nymphomania, which used to be another aspect of diagnosed hysteria, was completely dropped in America in the early 1950s with the start of the sexual revolution. However, after the 1920s most people had already declined its use. Another reason why these kinds of places were abandoned massively. Shock therapy, lobotomies, the Utica Crib…You’d be surprised to know the insane treatments that some people had to endure in the name of early mental health.”

“Oh, I kinda know about those…” Mulder chuckled.

Looking back at him in surprise, she quickly realized what he meant. 

“Sorry. Sometimes I forget you were a Psychology major.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I didn’t focus more on the Experimental branch than the Historic side of it…” He put the book back on the shelf. “Let’s get back downstairs. The girl wasn’t even in here.”

Mulder walked towards the door and Scully followed suit. However, as they walked into the corridor, he feigned gallantry again and invited her forward pushing her lower back as he always did. Back at the beginning, she always walked behind him; first out of an uncalled-for inferiority complex of being the rookie agent, then just out of habit. But at some point, Mulder started inviting her forward and she appreciated him for it. 

_ Pretty… _

A sudden gust of wind as they began to walk down the stairs brought a word with it. Scully froze in place and Mulder almost knocked her down.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I thought I heard something.”

Everything is in your mind, she told herself. There’s nobody here.

_ Pretty girl _ … she heard again, but pushed the thought away, making her best to disregard it.

A graze along her ass was more difficult to ignore.

Scully turned around, but there was nobody there. Mulder had stopped behind her, a couple of steps higher, and was inspecting the ceiling.  _ Enough with the creepy feelings, Dana. You can’t let Mulder get into your head _ .

Mulder resumed his descent and she did too, pacing faster into the last of the steps and finally into the main corridor. 

The slap to her ass was impossible to miss.

“Mulder!” She turned around, feeling him close enough now.

“What?” He looked her way, pointing the flashlight at her.

“That was way out of line,” she angrily admonished him, pushing his light away from her face.

“What, what did I do now?” 

Mulder looked at her with such an innocent face that she doubted what she had felt. But she hadn’t made it up.

“You…you slapped my ass,” she muttered, feeling her cheeks turn a darker shade of red. Their flirting had always been so light and they never talked about it. “Not funny.”

His joyful demeanor turned somber at her words. 

“Scully, I would never do that,” he quickly replied. “I’m offended, honestly, that you think I would,” he lowered his voice walking past her. “I think we should get going. Come back when it’s daylight.”

It took Scully a couple of seconds to react. She had hurt him and she felt bad.

“I’m sorry Mulder, but I swear I felt…” 

He was far enough already not to hear her excuses. Another cold gust of wind blew a chill down her spine and Scully started running after him.

The drive back to the motel was done in complete silence. As soon as he parked the car, Mulder rushed out without waiting for her. He hit the central locking button on the key as soon as Scully slammed the door closed.

“Good night, Scully,” he just said while the keys jingled at his door.

Still not looking at her, Mulder entered his room and closed the door behind him.

* * *

Mulder still couldn’t believe what Scully had accused him of. His flirting had always been completely harmless. And he thought Scully enjoyed it somehow. She had never told him off about it, and at times she even joyfully participated. He didn’t know what she must have felt, but the mere idea that she could think that he would slap her ass was nonsense. 

He was restless and had been pacing his room up and down since he had walked in. His jacket and tie laid lazily wrinkled on his bed, and he had undone a couple of buttons of his white shirt. Unbuttoning his sleeves and rolling them up to the crooks of his arms, he realized he was feeling hotter than he should. It was cold outside, but his pent up anger was making him fume. Mulder still couldn’t pinpoint who he was angry at; Scully for having such a bad impression of him, or himself for having given it? He should be watching himself from then on. He needed to change her image of him. Mulder’s body thudded on the bed as it dropped down.

The silence in the room was making him go mad so he reached for the remote and turned the TV on. Lying on his left shoulder, Mulder flicked through the channels until he found an old black-and-white movie. Seeing Vincent Price appear on screen made him chuckle. This should be a good way to forget about the incident. Watching Peter Lorre wave a magic wand, Mulder finally recognized the movie. Yeah, this one was perfect.

Suddenly, he heard a scream in Scully’s bedroom and his body moved on autopilot. Before he could register the sound, his legs had already propped him up and he was pushing the adjoining door.

Scully was in front of the mirror, her pajama shirt halfway buttoned up, looking so pale that he worried she was going to faint.

“You okay?”

“Y-yes, yes. Sorry, I scared you,” she stammered walking towards him and buttoning the shirt, grabbing a robe from the bed and pulling it over her shoulders.

“What happened? You’re shivering,” he noticed and rubbed her arms trying to warm her up.

“I…I thought I saw…nothing, it was nothing.”

He could tell she was lying, again. He wouldn’t buy it, not after what they had just gone through. Mulder stared intently at her asking her silently to trust him.

“I guess that creepy place has gotten under my skin more than I thought. But I’m fine.”

Whatever she had seen, or she thought she had seen, she wasn’t going to share with him. Something had been broken between them, and Mulder knew he wasn’t winning her back by pushing her.

“Okay. Sorry for intruding,” he sighed, turning around and walking away.

“Wait!” Scully hurried after him and grabbed his arm when he was already in his room. Mulder could feel she was still cold, but she wasn’t shivering anymore. It was something. “I want to apologize, Mulder, for my accusation back at the asylum,” she continued. “I know you wouldn’t do that, I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s okay,” he said, though he was still hurt. “Creepy old buildings and ghosts have that impact on people.”

Scully just chuckled, instead of fighting him.

“That’s not your usual brand of entertainment,” she suddenly said, tilting her head and looking over his shoulder at the TV.

“It’s  _ The Raven _ . An old movie, the early sixties I think, one of the films Roger Corman did with Vincent Price adapting Poe.”

“I don’t remember the poem exactly… But I’m pretty sure that Poe’s Raven only said “Nevermore”, Mulder,” she laughed at the chatty bird.

“It’s a _really_ _loose_ adaptation. Pretty bonkers. Especially the ending.” They both hesitated. “I’ll leave you alone,” he finally said, walking inside his room.

“Wait. I wanna see how it ends…if you’ll have me?” she said, hesitantly following him to his room.

She seemed pretty shaken. Mulder was still a little upset about her accusation earlier, but he realized she wanted to make amends. And he would be lying if he said he wasn’t concerned about her. Besides, there was nothing he would like more than watching a movie with Scully.

“Of course, I’ll make room for you.”

He had some clothes on the right side of the bed. Mulder cleared it for her before sitting back on the left side, where he had already been lounging.

After the movie finished they started with the next one, which was much less amusing. There seemed to be a post-Halloween month movie marathon. Scully fell asleep in the first quarter and he carried her to her own bed leaving the adjoining door open, just in case. 


	5. Chapter 5

> _ March 16, 1919 _
> 
> _ Mr. Morrison has found me touching myself and he’s taking me to see a doctor. He says this is bad for me, and not helping to get pregnant. I tried telling him there was nothing wrong with what I was doing, that it was actually his sister who taught me about it. But if I refuse him or try to oppose him in any manner…it's like having Father around again, belt in hand, feeling like a little girl. Maybe I should get Marion to talk to him directly. _

_ Edna Ferber Motel _ _   
_ _ Engadine, Michigan _ _   
_ _ Saturday, November 15th _ _   
_ _ 7:00 a.m. _

Scully woke in her motel bed having had some disturbing dreams that she couldn’t quite recall. She didn’t remember falling asleep either, but she did remember being in Mulder’s room watching some ancient movie. He must have taken her back to bed after she snoozed off beside him.  _ How embarrassing. _ Why on earth had she accused him of touching her at the asylum when he had always been perfectly honorable? This case and her personal life might be taking a greater toll on her than she had anticipated.

Jumping off the bed she noticed the adjoining door was ajar. Peeking inside Mulder’s room she noticed he wasn’t there, probably had left for one of his runs. Scully was envious of his morning energy; it took all of her strength to exercise in the morning. She closed the door and went to her bag to get dressed and ready. Only when she looked herself over in the mirror, did she remember why she had needed to stay with Mulder for a while.

The pale blonde girl reflected in the mirror. 

It had been just a glimpse. When she had raised her head after brushing her teeth, the blonde had been there, right beside her. When Scully yelled and turned around there was no one, and the mirror reflected only her. Mulder had been in the room right after, but she couldn’t tell him what she had thought she’d seen. How could she? It had been nothing. Just her tired and mind playing tricks on her, influenced by the dark, grim asylum. 

After spending some minutes with Mulder and that horribly funny movie, she had forgotten all about it. But now it was coming back to her.  _ Calm down, you can’t let this atmosphere affect you _ .

They still had plans to interrogate Michael and head to the asylum again in daylight, hopefully having a less creepy and more useful visit. 

“Scully, you awake?”

A knock on the adjoining door made her quickly finish buttoning her shirt.

“Everything okay around here?” Mulder asked when she opened the door.

He was sweaty and the scent was leaning toward the strong side, but she didn’t care. She didn’t have many chances to see him like that, so carefree and masculine, she just wanted to marvel at the view.

“Yes, everything is fine.”

“Nice. I won’t keep you waiting. I’ll be ready in five,” he promised, turning around and pulling off his sweatshirt, not even attempting to close the door.

Scully gave him some privacy by stepping away herself, stealing some glances at his bareback before doing so.

* * *

Michael Crowel was the epitome of a troubled boy. He had never been arrested but had spent several nights in detention for minor assaults or participating in quarrels. Thus, it didn’t surprise Scully that Jess’s friend, Mandy, pegged him as an abuser. Jess didn’t seem like the kind of girl who would stand a relationship like that. And other than the strap marks on her wrists, she didn’t have any other long-term scars or marks to suggest an abusive relationship. But dealing with those was never easy.

They knocked on the Crowel’s door and waited. After a couple of minutes of nobody answering, they knocked again. 

"Nobody's home," a voice yelled from behind them. 

The quirkiest old lady they had ever seen waved their way as she approached them. She was wearing a pretty garish red coat with white feathered print. A pompous hat with colorful feathers adorned her head and a pink walking stick in her right hand helped her move. She had to be about eighty but had the energy of a young woman.

"Mr. and Mrs. Crowel have gone away for the weekend. And Michael has a weekend shift so I don’t think you’re going to find anybody home,” the old lady explained, walking up the path towards them. “Helena Jefferson, nice to meet you,” she said as soon as she reached them, offering her hand. “You must be the FBI agents that visited Jessica yesterday, right? Poor child, she’s suffered so much.”

Mulder and Scully looked at each other. People were not usually this friendly and forward with them, especially if they hadn’t approached them first.

“Yes, ma’am, Agent Mulder, and Agent Scully, at your service,” Mulder grabbed her hand and the old lady smiled.

“Stop that, young man. She already warned me you are such a charmer,” she half scolded him and Scully couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

“Jessica?” Scully was surprised. Mulder had been pretty distant when they had talked to the girl the day before.

“No, not Jess. My mother,” the woman explained, raising a finger and pointing at the sky. 

Mulder and Sully looked at each other, confused. Was she talking about a dead mother? If that was so, this woman’s credibility had been flushed down the toilet for Scully.

“But she didn’t tell me you were so handsome,” the old lady continued And that you have good taste,” she said pointing at his tie. ”So I’ll let it pass.”

Scully was surprised at the statement. Mulder’s weird ties were the opposite of good taste. But only then, she realized that the fabric of Helena’s coat was curiously matching his tie. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Jefferson,” he replied, looking at Scully to rub that compliment in her face.

“Oh, it’s Miss. But call me Helena, please.”

If Scully didn’t know any better she’d say the old lady was flirting with Mulder. So she let him speak.

“So, Helena, do you know Michael Crowel’s whereabouts? Do you know when he's coming back?”

“He probably won’t be back until later this evening. That is if he doesn’t have a party or something to go to. You know how young people are. Always coming and going. He’s not the kind to stay at home that much. He’s a busy kid, but he is really nice. He is always helping me with the garden and moving heavy stuff.”

The woman kept staring at Mulder, completely ignoring Scully. It was not unusual, whenever conducting an interrogation, that she would end up taking a backseat for other officers of the law. It annoyed her to be ignored simply for being a female agent, but this was not the case. Helena was just completely charmed by Mulder. Scully could hardly blame her.

“Can you walk me back home?” The old lady asked Mulder, immediately grabbing his arm and hanging her pink cane on her arm. “I’m a bit tired. Maybe you can come by later,” the woman continued. “I can make some tea and read your leaves.”

“Uhm, sure, ma’am.”

“Helena, dear,” the woman corrected him again. 

Scully walked behind them and stopped at the car, waiting for Mulder to come back, amused at his newfound friend.

At that moment, Helena stopped and whipped around, directing her attention to Scully for the first time since they'd met her. Scully was taken aback by her sudden shift in attitude. 

"Mother says you should be careful," she said in an odd, lilting voice. "Listen to her. Marion is always right." 

With that, she turned on her heel and walked away.

* * *

Mulder wanted to visit the asylum again in plain daylight, but he decided to go back to interview Miss Jefferson later. She seemed like a woman who knew a lot about the people in town. So, maybe she could tell them more about the 1989 case, about Michael and Jessica…It was not like him to rely on the accounts of third parties, but the old lady seemed eager to talk, and it might be useful. 

As they were about to reach the asylum, Scully got a call on her cell. As soon as she saw the caller’s ID she huffed and put the phone away without answering.

“Annoying admirer?” he joked. 

As far as he knew there was nobody in her love life. But the way she huffed and puffed, it seemed like a very tiresome person.

“What? No, no. It’s just my mother. She’s been a bit…persistent lately.”

“I guess a mother’s business is to worry about their children. Don’t be too hard on her. You’ll probably be the same way someday.”

There was an awkward silence. He didn’t know what came over him to say that. Ever since he had found Scully’s ova he had been pondering on her as a mother. She’d be perfect, of course, as she was with everything she did. He wondered if she knew he felt this way; they hadn't talked about it. He desperately wanted to tell her but not until he could bring good news along with her ova. 

The silence was broken by the decaying building finally appearing over the rise, within their sights.

Visiting the asylum in plain daylight was a less mysterious event. The day before it looked like a mystic and romantic setting, today it had become decadent and gloomy. However, Mulder was glad that they had decided to come back; there were so many mysteries yet to be solved at this place.

Mulder wasn’t going to make the mistake of walking behind Scully today as he sped up and entered first, before strolling around the ground floor. They had already checked the upper floor without any clue to be found, and Jessica had assured them that whatever had tried to grab her was in the basement. All the great things started in basements, Mulder thought, chuckling.

“I’m going down!” He called to Scully as he started on the stairs.

What was left of the floorboards creaked and threatened to collapse under him, but somehow he made it safely to the lower floor. Pointing his flashlight left and right, Mulder started walking to the end of the corridor.

The air was stale and humid, and he couldn’t sense any old perfume odor like Jessica had told them about. That was until Scully appeared right behind him a couple of minutes later. Her perfume was so characteristic, striking, and signature he could always identify her with his eyes closed.

“Did you find anything?” She asked.

“All the doors seem to be locked, except that last one,” he said, pointing his light to the distance. “So that must be the room Jessica walked into.”

“It should be easy, then. Too bad we didn’t bring a Proton Pack,” she joked.

He knew she wasn’t serious, but just getting a Ghostbusters reference seemed like a big improvement to him. His heart skipped a beat knowing that not everything was lost with her. One day he’d make her a believer in all things spooky. She’d see for herself that the supernatural truly existed.

Walking into the room, Mulder noticed it was even worse than a jail cell. Small space, no windows, and an incredibly uncomfortable, tiny cot. His heart dropped at the sight. How in the hell could someone believe that keeping a person locked in a place like that would help their psyche?

“This is awful. I’m glad this place was shut down,” he sighed, finally walking in to start searching around.

They were hoping to find any trace of a second person having hidden in the room before Jessica walked in, but everything seemed to have been untouched for decades. The thick layer of dust was proof of it. Jessica swore that she hadn’t touched anything inside the cell and by the looks of it, she had been telling the truth.

“Look at these,” Scully said and pulled some old straps hanging at the foot of the bed. “They match Jessica’s marks.”

Mulder had to agree with her. The leather was worn out and distressed; the brittleness visible from feet away. He tugged it from her hands, stretched it out a little, and the strap tore in two.

“I don’t think this particular strap could have held Jessica’s wrists long enough to leave marks. Do you?”

“Maybe there are more of these around somewhere…Let’s check the other rooms.”

They left that cell and tried every remaining door in the basement. As Jessica had assured them, all the rooms were locked.

“Mulder?” Scully called.

He looked at her and saw her flashlight pointing at one of the small windows on a cell door.

“I think I’ve found Ryan Mills’s body,” she declared as she fumbled with the lock, trying to get it open.

How on earth had he ended up inside a locked cell?


	6. Chapter 6

> _May 21, 1919_
> 
> _Dr. Lapinance has tried to touch me where only Mr. Morrison is allowed to, so I screamed and he hit me. I hate him so much. Nurse says I should behave or they’ll have to confine me permanently and tie me down. But he’s also a man, he can’t understand. I wanna run away but there’s no place I can go._

_Lapinance Asylum_ _  
__Allenville, Michigan_ _  
__6:03 p.m._

Local police were mobilized quickly, and a couple of officers had gotten to the asylum and processed the collection of the body. However, that was about as much as they did. The boy wasn’t from around the area, and since the FBI was handling the case, local authorities were more than happy to leave everything in their hands. It was not like they had been paying any attention to it before, seeing as they had completely missed the corpse when they had—allegedly, Mulder thought—searched the place the week before.

Scully had followed the body about an hour ago to perform the autopsy. In the meantime, Mulder had been left with a young officer to search the premises for any more clues. They couldn’t find another way of entry into the locked cell and no prints on the handle to point to an assailant. Mulder wished he had someone more experienced with him, but the rookie was the only officer willing to stay behind. When the sun started setting, Mulder noticed the young man had started perspiring copiously, so he decided to call it a day and let him go. Other people might not believe in ghost stories, but they sure as hell were scared by them. 

Back in the day, he would have stayed by himself, not caring about anything else but to find out the truth and evidence of the supernatural, whatever the cost. Not this time, though. He found some traces of maturity inside telling him he shouldn’t be out there without backup. He wasn’t a teenager like the ones that had been attacked, and didn’t necessarily fit the profile, but he had no desire to be out there unaccompanied. 

He had always been reckless, but he was not like that anymore. Maybe it was just because he didn’t enjoy searching places without Scully. Or maybe because, for the first time in his life, he thought he might be missed, if only a little, if he perished. Whatever the reason, he decided to come back with backup.

So, instead, he decided to accept Helena Jefferson’s earlier invitation. Maybe he could get some information out of her. 

Driving back to Engadine by himself, he pondered on Scully’s behavior in the last couple of days. There was something odd about her and he couldn’t say what it was. She didn’t seem like herself, something must have been bothering her. Mulder desperately wanted to help her, but if she didn’t confide in him, there was nothing he could do. As usual, he could only be there for her and wait until she was ready.

“Mr. Mulder!” Helena squealed when she opened the door finding him. “I knew you were coming, but I wasn’t expecting you until a little bit later…It’s okay, I’ll get the tea ready in no time, please make yourself comfortable,” she added, inviting him in and leading him to the living room area.

The old lady guided him to a floral print couch on which she insisted he sat before heading to the kitchen to get the kettle going. No matter how much he told her she didn’t need to prepare anything, Helena wouldn’t take no for an answer. So he just waited for her to come back.

Everything in the living room was bright and bombastic. There were two chandeliers with colorful swirling glass pendants. A Rococo cupboard presided over the front wall, full of fine crystal glasses and ornate plates. Teacups of many different sizes and colors filled up two shelves.

Helena was back quite fast, dragging her feet along the way, holding a teapot on a tray. As soon as Mulder laid eyes on her, he got up and took the tray from her, placing it on the coffee table.

“Thank you, dear. Now, which cup would be best for you?” Helena started rambling, walking over to the cupboard. She opened the upper door and immediately closed it, turning to the lower shelf and picking an orange and black cup. “The perfect cup for the fox,” she declared, leaving it in front of Mulder and filling it with the ochre beverage from the teapot. Mulder frowned. He didn’t remember having told the woman his first name. “Now, tell me. How is the investigation going? Did you find anything about the terrible person who hurt poor Jessica?”

“I’m afraid we can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, Miss Jeff—Helena,” he corrected himself upon her frowning at him. “But I was hoping you might tell me a bit about the other kid that was attacked some years back. Maybe Mary Ann has some insight about what happened?” 

Mulder appealed to the persona she had mentioned that morning. Whether it was real or imagined—he somehow bet on the latter—he trusted his instinct about bringing her in.

“It’s Marion, dear,” Helena corrected him. “We don’t have much to say about that. I was ill during that time, and Marion hadn’t come back yet. She has only been around for the last couple of years. Now, stop nosing around and drink your tea. We want to see what your future holds.”

Mulder was confused, but as the old lady didn’t want to elaborate, he decided to let it go. Instead, he did as told and took a sip of the beverage in front of him. Mulder wasn’t very fond of infusion drinks, he usually preferred coffee. But this one had a taste he really enjoyed. He was about to ask Helena which blend it was when he noticed something familiar in one of the portraits hanging on the wall. Leaving the cup on its saucer, he got up.

“Is this woman related to Jessica in any way?” He asked Helena.

The picture portrayed a woman in her early twenties, or maybe late teens. Due to the black and white, old picture it was difficult to tell. But Mulder could see clearly the pendant that Jessica had been holding the day before around the young woman’s neck.

“Oh, poor Emma. Yes, she was Jessica’s great-grandmother. I always thought Jessica looked very much like her. I never met her, though, Emma died in childbirth. Little Irene was lucky to make it out alive. She was a very sick child, though she was always my favorite cousin.”

Mulder inspected the picture for a little longer. There was no clear resemblance between Emma and Jessica, although maybe they had a similar nose. If not for the pendant, he wouldn’t have known.

“Hum, this is interesting,” Helena thought aloud and Mulder was forced to turn around. “Tea leaves say you’re going through an important change in your life. Maybe a job or dwelling move?”

Mulder rolled his eyes. He was a true believer, but he needed some kind of proof sometimes to go all in, Scully had taught him that. And this felt like one of those times.

“The leaves might be confused. I am—and I’ll be—pretty stable on those at the moment.”

“Then it might be something else, but I can clearly see a change in your future. It's a good change, though. Also, you’re gonna witness something amazing. So stay vigilant, Agent Mulder, you don’t want to miss it!” She added, pointing a finger at him. “And now, get going. Your partner will be arriving soon and Marion says she has important news for you.”

* * *

The autopsy hadn’t been too complicated but Scully was exhausted. Whenever she found it difficult to pinpoint a cause of death or when it didn’t make sense, her brain fought and fought to make it work. 

The kid had died from smoke inhalation. There were severe burns to his respiratory system. But there had been no fire where he had been found. He must have died somewhere else, it was the only logical explanation, even though it seemed to be impossible. The lock on the door of the room he had been found in was rusty and stuck, meaning it hadn’t been opened in years. But how could he have gotten in? As the officer drove her back to Engadine she went over her notes again and hoped that Mulder had found something about that.

When she got to the motel, Mulder was already there. They shared notes for about an hour and decided they needed to talk to Michael Crowel the following day. Tired as she was, Scully wished Mulder a good night and headed to her room. She had some missed calls from her mom but she sent her a message that she was out of town and would call her when she was back. Coming to Michigan was serving the purpose to keep her mind clear of depressing thoughts and she wouldn’t let her mother ruin that now.

Scully finished her well-deserved bath and proceeded to put on her pajamas. It was her favorite moment of the day when the cool satin fabric grazed her torso and rested on her shoulders. A peaceful sigh escaped her throat as she avoided glancing over at the mirror. No need to get freaked out today again. Turning off the light in the bathroom, she headed for the bed. 

She had notched up the temperature on the thermostat when she had entered the room an hour back but was still feeling chilled and uncomfortable. Scully layered on the clothes and carried two more blankets into the room, then sat on the bed. 

She didn't want to go over the case again, so she grabbed the book she had brought with her. Soon, she was feeling dozy and decided to call it a day. Before turning off the bed lamp, she caught a glimpse of steam leaving her nostrils but didn't make much of it. It must be a colder night than she thought, it was November, after all. Once she was under the blankets she'd be warm, that was for sure.

However, she didn't find it so easy to fall asleep. Memories of the face in the mirror from the day before kept haunting her. She seemed to have left her drowsiness somewhere along the way. She knew it wasn’t real, but it felt like someone was in the room with her. Too many ghost stories and unexplained phenomena.

After a while, she decided enough was enough and knocked on Mulder's door. She needed a distraction. 

Mulder opened the door as fast as lightning, and she was happy to see he hadn’t gone to bed yet. She knew he would be awake, he always kept long hours, but there was always the chance he might have been tired and gone to bed early. She didn’t want to disturb him. She hadn’t done that, though, as she couldn’t help but scan him before the rest of the room. He had been lounging in a t-shirt and jeans—hadn’t put on his pajamas yet—and the TV was on.

"Vincent Price again?" Scully asked, seeing the famous actor on the screen. 

"It's ' _The Masque of The Red Death_ ’,” he explained. “It looks like they're running the seven movies of the Poe-Corman cycle this week. This one is more faithful to the original story than yesterday's was." 

"Well, that's easy to accomplish," she replied, remembering the speaking bird and laser rays. 

"You wanna see how it ends?" He invited her in as she’d done the night before. Not even waiting for her reply, he started making room on his messy bed. 

“Sure,” she replied, reassuring him. 

Scully was liking this new level of familiarity they had started since she had gotten ill. She didn't know where it was going to take them. As much as she wanted to resist his charms, there was something in Fox Mulder that made her want more of him. 

She sat on the left side of the bed, and Mulder offered her a blanket to throw over her. She wasn't feeling cold in his room, but she accepted it nevertheless. 

In spite of herself, she had to admit that this movie was much less amusing than the one from yesterday. It was a better adaptation, sure, but somehow Vincent Price being funny won over him being serious. She wondered why Mulder might like old movies as he did. She had pegged him as a sci-fi kind of guy. If she didn't find him watching adult movies, most of the time there was some black and white on his screen. She might ask him about it one day. Not now, though, she was feeling tired and comfortable. She fell asleep even before the movie ended.


	7. Chapter 7

> _August 15, 1919_
> 
> _I know there is nothing wrong with me, but these people are trying to convince me of the contrary. I think I just should feign agreeing with them so they would let me go. They say they’ll have to take my baby away when she’s born if I don’t change._
> 
> _I’ve been in the asylum for three months, and they have finally let Marion visit. She has managed to sneak in my diary, I’m so happy I can write again._
> 
> _She’s Mrs. Jefferson now, and she’s with child, too. Wouldn’t it be perfect if our children became best friends?_
> 
>   
>    
> 

Edna Ferber Motel  
Engadine, Michigan   
Sunday, November 16th   
6:21 a.m.

A sudden thud woke Scully up and she was disoriented in the darkness. She felt a presence in the room and bristled with fright for a moment before remembering she had fallen asleep in Mulder’s bed. Somehow, she had imagined he’d be bringing her back to her room again, but he must have fallen asleep, too. 

Trying not to make a noise, she turned over her left shoulder and saw him sleeping, half sitting on his side of the bed, his neck twisted in a seemingly uncomfortable manner. How he managed to sleep on a couch when he was home was incomprehensible for her. Seeing him sleep like that finally gave her an idea of why. He could sleep anywhere and she’d argue, anytime.

Scully got up from the bed, as slowly and silently as she could, and tiptoed back to her room. That she didn’t trip over any of Mulder’s belongings scattered around the floor was a miracle. Scully left the adjoining door open, not wanting the creak to wake him, and pulled the covers over her chest just in time to hear him snort himself awake. He tried to be silent, too, but she heard him perfectly well. Mulder walked over to her room, peeked inside, and pulled the door. She imagined he’d be going back to sleep but only heard him rummage for a couple of minutes and then head out. Scully checked her clock and realized it was almost sunrise. She could start to get ready but if Mulder was going for a run, she could get about an hour more sleep. Today was going to be a long day, so she closed her eyes and hoped a REM cycle wouldn’t elude her.

Scully was awoken when Mulder came back later from his run. He tried to be noiseless again, but now the sun was up and it was high time she got out of bed. Before going into the bathroom, she headed for his door, to say hi.

“Did you have a nice run?” she asked him opening the door and finding him, fortunately—but slightly disappointingly—still fully dressed.

“Yeah. You should try it sometime. It’s really invigorating. Did you sleep well?”

“Like a baby cat,” slipped her tongue before she could even notice. It was true, but should she have said that? She shouldn’t have said that.

“I’m glad,” he smiled widely and she forgot for a moment how improper it had been to sleep on his bed. Their boundaries were fading at an alarmingly fast rate but somehow she didn’t care. 

“I’ll get dressed and we can go see if Michael is home, just like Helena told you.”

After checking in with the lab if the results of the blood analysis and fibers had been released—which they hadn’t—Mulder and Scully headed out.

On the third day, they finally got an answer when knocking on Michael Crowel’s door. However, they were surprised to find the state the young man was in. 

"Michael Crowel?” Scully wondered aloud. 

The young man looked like the one in their file, but he wasn’t completely recognizable under all the bruises on his face and the busted open lip.

"Who's asking?" he answered, angrily.

"We're Agents Scully and Mulder, with the FBI. We want to ask you some questions about Jessica Williams and Ryan—.” 

"Dudes! That asylum's gotta be burnt down! I almost didn't make it out of there alive!" 

Michael was clearly distressed. His wounds were fresh. 

“Have you gone back lately?” Mulder uttered the words Scully was thinking as they followed the kid inside.

“I heard the news yesterday evening,” Michael started explaining as he sat down on a turned-around chair, facing the couch they were in. “I gotta admit I might have drunk one beer too many. It wasn’t the cleverest idea to go back there. I needed to hit something! I told Ryan not to go, and then I did the same. For fuck’s sake…”

“It’s okay, calm down,” Mulder tried to make some sense of his rumbling. “When did Ryan go back?”

Scully’s autopsy showed that the kid had been dead for about a week.

“Last Friday, I think…or maybe Saturday, I don’t remember. He wanted to see if he could find the ghost that had attacked Jessica, but I told him to let it be. Of course, he didn’t listen, he’s a paranormal stuff freak. That’s why we went there in the first place. I should have never told him about the asylum.”

“How did you know about it? It’s not exactly on Michigan’s guidebook,” Mulder continued.

“I-uhm…Apparently my great-grandfather ran the place,” the young man answered, slightly ashamed.

“Doctor Lapinance,” Scully noted.

“Yeah. He’s not very liked around here, some people say he was a monster. Family never talked about it, but I found out about a month ago when I was doing genealogy research.”

“And yesterday you went back there…” Mulder wanted to redirect the conversation to the important matter.

“So stupid. I got my ass kicked by an angry ghost mob or whatever. Man, I’ve never been more scared in my life.”

“You didn’t see your assailant, you mean,” Scully pushed.

“No, ma’am. I didn’t. But not because I was wasted, I know what you’re thinking.” The boy squirmed on his seat. “I got completely sobered up when that raspy lady voice whispered in my ear.”

“What did she say?” Mulder inquired further.

“‘ _You’re finally gonna pay for your crimes.’_ I don’t understand what crimes. I’ve done nothing.” Michael rubbed his head and winced. “Look, I know I’m not a saint, but I’ve never done anything to deserve this.”

When he raised his arms, Scully could see the strap marks.

“Michael, where did you get those?” She signaled to his wrists.

“The _thing_ grabbed be here. I swear they felt like hands. Cold flimsy hands. But I got these marks. And then, before I knew it, I was pinned to the floor and a thousand people were thrashing on me. I smelled smoke, though there was no fire…I would have died there if the sun hadn’t risen and made the ghosts disappear.”

Mulder and Scully looked at each other. The boy’s story could not be confirmed. And as he had admitted to being under the influence of alcohol, he couldn’t be a reliable source. His wounds were real, but there was no way to tell where he had gotten them from.

After making sure they got his story straight, they suggested he went to the hospital. Michael didn’t want to report his story to the police, thinking they wouldn’t listen to him, just as they hadn’t listened to Jessica. Michael thought if he went to the police station, they would arrest him for trespassing, charge with some quarrel or something of the like. Police officers in the area were not very fond of him, he said. 

Mulder and Scully finally left Michael alone, asking him to call them if he remembered something else or if something new came up.

Once outside, they started discussing the assailant’s MO. Mulder truly thought it was some supernatural entity. Scully, as usual, strongly believed it had to be a human being behind the whole plot. They were at their usual crossroads. 

“It’s not even consistent. Three of the victims were young men, but there’s one young woman,” Scully pointed out.

“But, you see, Jessica was left alone. She only had the wrist marks, she wasn’t beaten down like the other victims.”

Mulder was right. She had noticed that at the very beginning: that Jessica’s assault didn’t seem like the original 1989 case, to begin with. 

As they were discussing their course of action, a familiar presence approached them.

“Agents Mulder and Scully. How nice to see you again,” Helena welcomed them.

Scully was surprised that the old woman remembered her name. Miss Jefferson was wearing a greater amount of make-up than she had the day before. And her nails were perfectly polished in a rainbow pattern.

“Agent Mulder, I was going to call you this morning when I noticed the state in which Michael had come back home. But then I figured you were going to come to visit him anyway.”

The old lady was such a busybody.

“Thank you, Helena,” Mulder 

“Just doing my duty to help law enforcement,” she added before leaving them. “Ah, I almost forgot. I’m baking a sponge cake for tea if you want to come by later. I guess Agent Scully can come, too, if she’s not busy today.”

“That really won’t be necessary, Helena. Thank you,” Mulder rushed to turn down her offer.

“That would be very nice, thank you, ma’am.” Scully left the door open for a visit instead. 

Mulder looked at her in surprise and Scully just shrugged her shoulders. She had no intention of coming back and having tea with the old lady, she didn’t think it would be useful for the investigation. But it was fun seeing Mulder interact with her and the look on his face as she suggested they might go was priceless.

As they were getting into the car, Scully got a call from the lab.

“They got the results from the analysis. Let’s go.”

Scully checked the lists again and again and still, she couldn’t find anything that made sense. No foreign blood, hair, or epithelium. The kid was as clean as he could be. The only strange element was the presence of asbestos in his lungs. As far as they could tell, the kid couldn’t have been in contact with it, the material being scarce these days. Scully asked for the tests to be done again, and headed to the morgue to get new samples, just in case.

When she was back outside, Mulder was waiting for her with a pair of shears on his lap.

“What are those for?” She asked as she approached him.

“We’re opening all the doors in that goddamn building.”


	8. Chapter 8

> _January 12, 1920_
> 
> _I’m going to call her Irene. It’s a beautiful name. I know it’s going to be a girl, it has to be. I just need to find a way to get out of here before she’s born. Maybe I could write to Marion, get her a note somehow. I know she would help me if she knew how it is here. She wouldn’t want her baby niece to grow up in such a hideous place._

_Edna Ferber Motel_ _  
__9:20 p.m._

It had been exhausting, as they hadn’t done fieldwork like that in months. But it had also been so stimulating. They had spent hours breaking into every room in that basement, ground floor, second floor… Searching the entire premises for any clues. 

They had ended up tired and shabby but hadn’t found any real interesting trail. Nonetheless, they had left the place with a smile. Mulder couldn’t understand how Scully could have enjoyed herself in there, though he had a theory: just being able to work, run up and down. It must have made her feel alive after her battling for months with that deadly illness they no longer talked about. 

It had been such a long day, and all he wanted to do was just collapse on his bed. First, he needed to scrub all the filth from his body he’d been gathering by spending a whole afternoon running up and down the old building.

He had a longer shower than usual, but when he got out of the bathroom, it was still early. He knew he wouldn’t fall asleep yet. So, Mulder decided he would take another quick look at his notes. They had been in Engadine for three days now, and they were not close enough to solving the case as he would have liked to. He felt the case was taking a toll on Scully. She was jumpier than usual and he hated seeing her like that. He shouldn’t have brought her here.

Mulder couldn’t concentrate. Rubbing on his nasal bridge he decided to call it a night. Maybe his brain would work in the background and solve the case by itself. It would be awesome at this point, he just wanted to get back home. 

He was about to change into his pajamas when he heard Scully knocking on the adjoining door. He rushed to let her in. Another scare? Three nights in a row?

“You haven’t changed yet?” She casually asked as he opened the door and walked ahead under his arm without waiting to be invited. He always forgot how tiny she was when she wasn’t wearing her heels.

The sight of her surprised him. She was not nervous, as she had been the nights before. She was tucked into her comfy pajamas and dragging fluffy slippers along his carpeted bedroom floor.

“So, which movie are we watching tonight?” Scully asked, sitting on the edge of his bed and taking one piece of popcorn from the bowl she was holding on her lap.

What was happening? Mulder was befuddled. 

“Tonight’s the last movie in the Poe-Corman series, right?” She tried to verify.

“Yeah…” 

Mulder remembered having told her about the seven-day series the day before. But had they talked any more about it?

“You weren’t expecting me,” she suddenly realized. Her previous contented demeanor turned quickly to a stiff one. “I…I shouldn’t have come, you were probably working,” she continued, pointing at all the paperwork on his bed and getting up. She started to rush away back to her room. “You’re so stupid, Dana,” he thought he heard her whisper.

“No, no. Wait,” Mulder grabbed her shoulder while he read the situation. She had come, out of the blue, and for no particular reason but to spend some time with him watching a movie. He had already ignored her wanting to consort with him while on assignment a couple of days before, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. “I…I just hadn’t realized what time it was. I’ll clean the bed in a blink and we’ll see if the movie has already started.”

As he rushed to stack up all of the papers and folders, Scully stood beside the bed, looking at him suspiciously. 

When he was done, he invited her to sit back on the bed.

“You sure I wasn’t imposing—?”

“Never! Please, make yourself comfortable, I’ll be back in a sec,” he grabbed his pajamas from the pile of clothes in the armchair and rushed to the bathroom.

It seemed Mulder had gotten what he had wanted all along. Was it as easy as that? Just showing up at her door with a box of popcorn and wanting to watch a movie with her? They had been doing it for the last two nights, but it had only been because she hadn’t wanted to be alone in her room. She didn’t seem scared at all tonight. Was she just placating him? Or was she really interested in spending some time with him?

Not wanting to leave her alone for too long, in case she changed her mind and slipped away, Mulder put on his yellow pajama pants and threw the t-shirt over his head. When he opened the door and walked back into the room, Scully was flicking through the channels. He noticed her stopping and staring at him while he slid his arms inside the sleeves of his shirt and pulled it down his torso. 

Was she blushing?

“I…I don’t remember the channel,” she quickly pulled her gaze away back at the TV, fumbling with the remote.

“TCM,” he answered as he leaped onto the mattress, making her jump a little and scatter some popcorn over the bedspread. “Whoops, sorry. I’ll clean it up,” he apologized before hastily picking the pieces and filling his mouth with them.

“Mulder, that’s gross. This bedspread is not precisely the epitome of cleanliness…”

“It’s okay. I’ve had dirtier things in my mouth,” he replied, trying a smile without spewing the contents. Only when she blushed again he realized the raunchiness of his sentence. “I mean…” for once he wasn’t trying to be lewd, “…never mind. Look!” He turned his attention to the TV. “We are just in time,” Mulder announced as the red and white letters on the screen announced the start of ‘The Tomb of Ligeia’.

This was probably his favorite of the movies in the series, but he couldn’t remember why. It had been a while since he had last seen it. Scully seemed to be enjoying it, too, and she somehow made it through the movie without falling asleep. That was a clear win.

She had brought a huge bowl of fresh popcorn—where the hell had she gotten it?—and they were picking from it casually, as they kept commenting on the movie. Every time their hands grazed, Mulder felt a surge of electricity. How he wished this was a date night with Scully.

“Okay, so she’s going to run away with the other guy, huh?” He fortuitously commented, popping a handful of popcorn in his mouth.

“Mulder, are you just noticing now? I said it was going to happen a while ago,” she snorted. “You even hummed in agreement.”

“Did I? I might have not been paying attention.”

“You never are. You're so slow noticing people's love interests,” she laughed heartily.

“What do you mean?” 

She looked intently at him, and paused for a moment as if deciding whether to go on or let it be. 

“Lily from the accounting department, for example. She’s always flirting with you but you never notice.”

“It’s not that I’m not noticing it. I'm just…not interested,” he explained, grabbing another handful, hoping to deflect that conversation.

“Or Minia,” she kept pushing, ignoring his last comment completely.

“No interest either,” Mulder replied, speaking over her. 

He started getting uncomfortable. This was not something he wanted to talk about. All of those women had an interest in him. He knew about them, he just didn’t care about any of them. If she thought he was so obtuse, it meant she wasn’t noticing him either. Maybe, she was just dismissing him for another reason. 

“No? Why not? They're so pretty. And they are nice women,” she added. “People are going to start believing you're gay, Mulder...Wait, is that it? I think Rob from VCU is also into you.”

He laughed hard, almost choking on a piece of popcorn.

“Not even close! I have just one interest,” he wanted to make her understand, “but it's quite…inconvenient.”

“Why's that?” She pushed.

“She's not interested.”

Mulder stared intently at her. If she really wanted to go there, he wouldn’t run away. 

She gulped. 

“So, you asked her?” 

“Not exactly, but I can tell by the way she reacts to me.”

Mulder kept staring at her. She had to know it was her. It had always been her.

“Maybe she's just doubtful. Or you’re not clear enough. Maybe you need to be more daring.”

She was deflecting his blows. He didn’t know whether she was talking about herself in the third person to detach herself from her feelings or if she was not getting what he meant.

“I don’t want to be out of line.”

Someone screamed on the TV, but neither of them was paying attention anymore.

“Maybe she wants you to.” She said it staring intently at him. 

There was another long silence, he could hear his own heart beating fast. Her breathing fast. She was nervous.

It was now or never and Mulder decided to go for it. Maybe this was the change that Helena had talked about. He was paying attention. Scully was asking him, in her askew way to take a step forward.

If he wasn't reading her correctly, he could blame her words, the movie, or just go jump off a cliff.

* * *

She hadn’t planned for this to happen when she had shown at his door earlier that night. Just as she hadn’t planned for anything, in particular, some days before by bringing “wine and cheese” to his room. She had always thought it would feel so wrong if they ever crossed that self-appointed line that they were always roaming around. However, this felt so right. 

His lips on hers were warm and luscious, and she felt like never letting them go. When he took them away from her, she couldn’t help but whine a little.

“Is this daring enough?” He challenged her. 

“Not enough,” she whispered, looking into his eyes with such desire that she hoped he didn’t have to guess anymore.

And he didn’t. His lips came to hers again but without any hesitation this time. 

Before she knew it, Mulder was on top of her, popcorn scattered all over the place. His left hand made it inside her pajamas, and the touch of his skin on hers burned so good. 

She had been craving his touch for the last couple of days more than she could ever admit. Now that she was getting it she couldn’t believe she hadn’t searched for it before.

Mulder was kissing her everywhere, making sure he covered every inch of her body. Her pajamas were long gone, she didn’t even notice when. His loving her was intoxicating and she was lost, just enjoying the moment.

His lips went down her body, slowly. He was making sure she felt appreciated. His eyes looked at hers for a second before going all the way down in an unspoken sign.

As soon as his tongue made contact with her entrance, Scully’s body writhed like it hadn’t in years. As he lavished her sex, she thought of the endless times she had been upset about finding sunflower shells around. She was now all-forgiving, instead thinking about starting to buy him lots of packages herself. His mastery was impressive. Dirtier things in his mouth, indeed. And she wouldn’t be one to complain.

It wasn’t long until she was shattering inside out in pleasure. 

Scully needed some minutes to catch her breath back. Meanwhile, Mulder laid beside her, not ceasing to reward her with fluttering kisses. How was he managing to make this all about her?

“Fuck me, Mulder,” she finally said.

He didn’t lose a second to be back on his knees, hard and ready to go on. 

This was so wrong for so many reasons, but she had never felt so alive.


	9. Chapter 9

> _ April 25, 1920 _
> 
> _ Ruth and I could use some help escaping here. I love her beautiful blonde hair and when her lips touch mine it feels like fireworks. This place is a nightmare but I’m grateful for having her. I’d be going mad without Ruth now that they have stolen Irene from me. I only saw that baby girl for a minute, but I’m so in love with her. I want to get out of here and get to her, protect her from the world from which nobody has protected me. _
> 
> _ We’ve been smelling smoke for a while, but these doors won’t open, and nobody listens to us anymore. Maybe if the firemen find us down here, we’ll finally be free. _

_ Edna Ferber Motel. _ _   
_ _ Monday, November 17th _ _   
_ _ 02:25 a.m. _

Mulder was expecting not to find her there when he woke up, but it stung nonetheless. Especially since it was still pretty early. Had she waited until he fell asleep to sneak out? Had she woken up and run away? He just hoped she was off thinking without his presence in such close proximity and not regretting it so quickly.

He turned on the bed and noticed the light under the adjoining door was on. He waited for a moment, thinking that, maybe, she had just left and was getting into bed. He changed his mind, though, once minutes and minutes passed, and the light had not turned off. Mulder considered that it might be out of line, but decided to knock anyway.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, without opening the door. 

What he wanted to ask was ‘Are you okay?’ or ‘Are  _ we _ okay?’ but he felt something more general might not give him away. He heard her sigh through the door and muffled steps coming. She opened the door, and he noticed she had changed her pajamas.

“Yes, I couldn’t sleep, my brain is stuck,” she walked back to her bed, where some folders were scattered. “I keep thinking this doesn’t make sense…What if there’s a secret passage somewhere?”

Mulder frowned.

“You know,” she continued, “like in all those movies? It was not uncommon in old buildings. Passages for the service so as not to interact with the lords and ladies…Maybe they have them in the asylum, too, for whatever reason.”

Mulder could feel her brain thinking fast. It was her trying to push aside the huge step they had taken. Instead of feeling pushed away, he decided to leave their personal conflict aside and follow her instinct. They could deal with their lives later. She obviously wanted to finish this first.

“It’s not out of the realm of extreme possibility. You wanna go check it out?”

“Right now? In the middle of the night?” She didn’t seem on board.

“Better than in daylight, maybe we can get the ghosts to help us,” he chuckled. 

“Mulder…”

“Or, we can just go back to bed and try tomorrow,” he said, laying down and patting the bed by his side.

Mulder could see the sudden realization in her face. Forced with the decision of having to push him out of her room or following him to his, Scully decided it was better to go ghost hunting. 

“I’ll get dressed,” she said, jumping out of bed.

Mulder drove as fast as he could, the streets were empty. In no time, he parked the car outside the building and they jogged through the garden.

As they arrived at the asylum, Scully hesitated for a moment. She stopped right before sneaking in under the chain that held the two sides of the front door together.

Mulder wondered what the problem was. 

"You want me to go first?" He asked her, but got no answer. 

She was frozen in place. 

"I know you're not scared, and need not be protected," he reassured her. "But I'll walk first in c—." 

"I saw someone," she finally admitted.

It took a second for Mulder to understand what she was talking about. 

Two nights ago. The scream in her room. Yesterday's worry. 

He was going to reply but she interrupted him. 

"A girl in my mirror. But it was not like that other time,” she hurried to explain. “I'm fine. Please, I need you to trust me." 

He had worried about this happening from day one. Somehow Scully had a deeper connection with the netherworld, he'd known that for years. He was slightly jealous if he had to admit it. But he trusted her, as she had trusted him to speak the words. It must have taken a lot for her to admit to the supernatural. 

"It's okay. We'll get to the bottom of this, tonight, together." He grabbed her hand as he slid under the chain and into the building. As she followed him inside, he added "Sooner rather than later we'll be back in bed." 

He didn't mean to make it sound sexual, though he kind of hoped that it would turn into it. Scully was too vigilant about her surroundings to entertain his advances. It might be better this way. It seemed she might need some time to process what had happened earlier that night. 

"Let's head upstairs," Mulder decided. "If we're going for the Secret Passage possibility, there must be a key or a map in Dr. Lapinance's office.”

* * *

Scully tried her best not to be startled by every sound around her. It was darker than ever, and their flashlights did a poor job at illuminating the huge building. Rats, birds, spiders, and whatnot crept away from them as they moved forward. She was scared, irrationally scared. She still believed that the assailant was not a supernatural one, but her ghostly encounter back at the motel had her spooked. In any event, the whole place was making her nervous. Mulder walked beside her, his hand at her lower back, grounding her slightly. It wasn't enough, though. She was a little on edge.

They entered Dr. Lapinance’s office for the third time that weekend, but this time they were looking for something different. The blueprints they had obtained had shown, of course, nothing suspicious. But Scully felt like she was right. Call it a hunch, or whatever. At this point, she didn’t know what she believed in anymore. 

“You twist the candelabra, I’ll pick the books,” Mulder joked as they stepped in.

Or maybe he wasn’t joking, as he started pulling on every book on the shelves. This was stupid. She shouldn’t have told him, he wouldn’t leave a rock unturned now that she had planted that seed on his mind…

Her rational side had to shut up when—out of just her attempt to humor him—a bookcase by her side creaked at her pushing a candle holder. 

“It’s always the candles!” Mulder yelled in joy.

He was like a kid in a haunted attraction. He took a couple of strides and was by her side, his hand on hers helping her push the holder. It was a bit stuck like it hadn't moved for decades. After some trying, they made it work. The shelf slid open, just enough for a person to squeeze in walking sideways and Mulder stepped inside, holding her hand. She didn’t like when he patronized her—it rarely happened, though—but now she was thankful for the extra care. 

It was a quite narrow spiral staircase, going down probably three floors. Mulder started stepping down. 

“Stay close,” he told her, his words sounding more like a plea than an order.

At the end of the stairs, there was just a door, closed, again. It would have been nice if they had brought heavy tools, but their usual picklock would have to do. Scully lit up the lock with her flashlight while Mulder pulled his hook. It was usually the other way around. But she was slightly shaking—she would blame the cold if he had noticed—and he didn’t even wait for her to do it.

“Let’s hope this is not a Chamber of Horrors.” Mulder thought aloud.

Sadly, he wasn’t off the mark.

Mulder tried the switch, and surprisingly the lights were turned on. There must have been a separate generator.

The asylum wasn’t filled with traditional measures of mental treatment. Scully thought they might have been taken away or stolen during the years. What she hadn’t imagined was that they would be all together behind a hidden door. All of the horrible means of treating mental health in the past she knew about—and some that she didn’t even recognize—were scattered around the big room they had just entered. 

“Mulder, this is…”

She was aghast and speechless. 

“There’s another door at the end,” Mulder noticed. 

Scully was completely in shock, but she followed him through the multiple devices that she decided to ignore for the time being.

“More cells,” Mulder said, opening to a corridor much like the one on the basement floor. They had to be exactly under it.

Scully walked past him and peeked into the little window of the first door to the left.

“Dear God!” she muffled a yell with her hands. 

Mulder walked beside her and she let him look. There was a skeleton huddled on a decayed cot. They walked along the corridor, peeking through all the doors, and they found the same scene in all of them. At the last one, Mulder decided to pick the lock again. 

Once it was open, Scully walked in, squatting directly beside the corpse. She knew it wouldn’t tell her much, given the state it was in, but she had to try, nonetheless. She heard Mulder wandering around the tiny cell.

“There’s a diary here,” Mulder said, showing her a worn-out notebook. “Last entry is dated April 25th, 1920.” 

She heard him flick through the pages.

“Scully, I know who this person is,” he claimed, calling for her attention.

When she walked to him, he was holding a black and white picture of a couple of young women.

“This is Emma, Jessica’s great grandmother,” he explained, pointing at the younger woman. He had told her about the girl’s ancestors as Helena had told him. “And this is Helena’s mother.”

They skimmed through the diary entries, finding out about how Emma had been committed to the asylum, how her baby had been stolen, and how she had been relegated to The Pit, as she called it in her writing.

“Mulder, you said she died in childbirth…but this proves otherwise.”

They perused the details over and over about the woman’s misfortunes. Scully felt the woman’s pain in her gut. Somehow she could comprehend the woman needing to get her baby back so desperately, as she herself felt for all the babies she had dreamed of but was never going to have.

As they flicked through the pages, some more pictures were stuck inside. Scully almost fainted when a recognizable face showed up in one of them.

“You okay?” Mulder held her as she jumped back and let the diary fall from her hands.

“It’s…it’s the woman I saw in the mirror,” Scully stuttered.

Turning the image, a single word was written: Ruth.

At that exact moment, the lights flickered and the whole place went dark.


	10. Chapter 10

_ Lapinance Asylum _ _   
_ _ Allenville, Michigan _ _   
_ _ 4:13 a.m. _

Scully’s hand darted to her pocket to get her flashlight and turn it on, but Mulder was quicker. As soon as the faint beam of light shone in her direction, she was petrified.

He noticed her fright.

“Scully? Are you okay?”

The woman in the picture, Emma, Jessica’s great-grandmother, was standing behind Mulder. Her face, pale and bagged-eyed. Her nightgown, threadbare and dirty. Her long brown hair, lifelessly tangled. She just stood there, silent, quiet.

“Scully?” Mulder repeated, taking a step toward her.

And then Emma moved, grabbing Mulder by the wrists. He wasn’t expecting it so it made him drop his flashlight.

“You’re not going to hurt her!” The specter yelled and dragged him to the wall.

Mulder started struggling to get free, seemingly trying to remove something from his wrist. Why couldn’t he see it?

“You’re all the same, but I’m not letting you hurt her,” the voice repeated.

“No!” Scully finally reacted and the specter stopped. “He’s not going to hurt me.”

The girl seemed confused. So did Mulder, who started looking around the room, trying to find out what was happening.

“Scully, who are you talking to? What is going on?”

The specter let go of Mulder, who took a step away from the wall and towards Scully.

“You can’t trust him. They are all the same.” Scully could feel the anger in the other woman’s voice. “They might seem charming and protective, looking after you. They are all the same; he’s going to hurt you,” Emma said, quietly. 

Mulder seemed confused. Awfully quiet. Like he was in a trance. Was the girl talking to just her? 

“I’m going to get rid of all of them, so they can’t keep hurting women,” the girl continued.

“No!” Scully took a step forward. “No, you don’t understand. He’s not like that. And I…”

_ I love him.  _

She had known for a while now, but she wasn’t ready to admit it aloud, yet. Not when he was standing right next to her.

The specter seemed to understand, though. Her demeanor changed. Her eyes showed understanding, compassion.

“Maybe…maybe you’re right. I can see he loves you, too. And...he’s going to give you what you want the most,” she stared at Scully’s belly.

No, that couldn’t be. It was more than impossible.

Emma was stretching her arm, about to caress Scully’s cheek, when suddenly her attention diminished.

“Lapinance is back,” she murmured before her incorporeal image disappeared.

Scully ran to the corridor in time to see some other forms go through the doors and vanish away.

“Scully, what is happening? What did you see?” 

Mulder stood beside her, completely unaware of his surroundings. What had happened to him back there? What had happened to her?

“Lapinance is back,” Scully repeated Emma’s words, trying to make sense of them.

“Michael!” Scully and Mulder yelled at the same time and ran back to the spiral staircase

* * *

He’d need to speak to Scully later, the experience inside that cell had him confused. He’d seen Scully standing there, speaking up. But he couldn’t hear or see anything. It was like he had been drugged, or in a dream that he couldn’t remember. All he knew was that somehow Michael had decided to come back to the asylum and they needed to protect him from the forces in there trying to kill him.

As they reached Lapinance’s office and started running to the main stairs, they could see the fight downstairs. 

“Leave him alone!” A female voice kept yelling, it sounded like Jessica but he couldn’t tell.

Once on the main floor, the scene was unbelievable. Michael seemed to be glued to the wall, about two feet above the ground. In the middle of the corridor, there was a small can of gasoline and a lighter on the floor. He had come to burn the place himself.

But the place wasn’t going down. Some invisible forces were beating him up good. Mulder tried to approach him but he was forced in place, again some unidentifiable forces pinning him back by the wrists.

“Emma, you’ve got to leave him alone,” Scully yelled to the wind. “He’s not who you think he is!” 

She seemed confused, frustrated. Also unable to move.

“Killing him is not going to get your baby back. She…she was taken care of, she grew old and happy…”

Mulder couldn’t see what she was seeing. Somehow, Emma was there, beating the kid. Scully was seeing it but not him. He felt again like he was under some cloud.

“Scully, talk to me. What is happening?”

“The women, they are beating him up. Emma, the blonde girl…They are taking their revenge.”

Jessica kept screaming and Michael had passed out. Mulder needed to do something.

If he couldn’t move forward, he still could go back downstairs. 

Mulder stretched as much as he could and took the gasoline and the lighter. Then he turned around and took a few steps before going back to Jessica. Everything had to go.

“I’m gonna end this,” he said, grabbing the pendant from her neck, and ran upstairs again and down the spiral staircase to the hidden laboratory.

He was sad for the corpse, the young woman who had endured more than she should. But now she was out of control. He hoped this worked. He dropped the pendant, sprinkled some gasoline over the cot, and flicked the flame on the lighter, throwing it before starting to run upstairs again. 

Half an hour later, the paramedics were taking the kids to the hospital. Michael was badly hurt, but Scully reassured him that he would survive. Jessica was still in shock but she wasn’t physically hurt. They would be okay, eventually.

“All those women,” Scully pondered as they jumped in the car. “They died alone, in a cell, their voices silenced. I hope they can get some rest now.”

“The barbarisms from the early stages of mental health will not cease to abhor me,” Mulder murmured.

They were silent for a moment.

“Mulder, how did you know to burn the body and the pendant to make it all go away?” 

Mulder chuckled. It was nice having her admitting that something supernatural had happened and that he had stopped it.

“Just like you knew about the secret passage: basic horror storytelling. I guess ghost stories are based on true facts, after all,” he added, looking at her.

He could see that she was struggling with what she had experienced. But she didn’t disagree. It had been a long night, a lot had happened.

A lot.

Now that the nightmare was over, he needed to ask about them, but the words kept piling up inside him. Mulder was unable to voice them, afraid it might push her back.

He placed a hand on her thigh and she immediately held it. Mulder grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her with adoration. She didn’t flinch or show discomfort but rewarded him with a smile.

It was the sign he needed.

“Mulder, you missed the exit,” Scully noticed.

“No, I didn’t,” he reassured her, his mind set. “I’m feeling lucky tonight.”

“You do?” She smiled again.

“You finally experienced the supernatural. We closed the case. I got the girl,” he smiled back at her, pausing for a moment. “It’s Northern Lights season…So we’re heading north. I have a great feeling. My tea leaves said so.”

Scully looked at him with that “I’m not going to ask” face that he knew so well. He just kept smiling. This was probably not what Helena had read. Mulder didn’t even know if he believed in her, even though she had hit the mark on the ‘important change’ part. It didn’t hurt to try, so he revved up and kept driving. There were only a few hours left of the night.

It wasn’t long until they glimpsed the green and yellow arcs on the horizon. Scully let out a pleasured sigh. He had gotten so many of those in the past, but this one seemed more triumphant somehow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated <3


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